


Beyond Repair

by Lxghts



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Gen, M/M, One Shot, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-26
Updated: 2019-01-26
Packaged: 2019-10-16 08:42:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17546357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lxghts/pseuds/Lxghts
Summary: What happens in between Steve's hospital stay and the meeting at Arlington.





	Beyond Repair

**Author's Note:**

> I've had this written for a while and never posted. figured it should be out there. Enjoy!

The room is silent. Which is saying a lot, because every hospital Sam had been in was usually drowned out in its own beeping monitors and whirring machines. Typical duties as a VA include constant visits to the sick, injured, elderly, and dying. War vets in hospitals and mental wards everywhere always need company. Its a simple comfort for some.

By nature, humans have a deep rooted and incredibly strong sympathy towards the suffering. An instinctual drive to help those in need. In ways, his work's a mutual give and take. The lonely need company, and Sam's desire to help has always been at the forefront of everything in his life.

Nonetheless, there was a familiarity attached to the present image of Steve laying there. He was used to seeing guys Steve's age- lacking the youthful appearance- laying in those same beds. Men who served in the Vietnam and Iraq. And the same look he'd seen behind the eyes of those men--the sternness and wisdom that only comes from a lifetime's experience and suffering--he'd also seen behind Steve's, when they first met.

  
Now Steve's face was dappled in blackish bruises, one eye puffed shut, hidden behind a pocket of fluid. His breathing was quiet.

He'd almost be peaceful, Sam thinks, if not for his broken face, the stitches in his cheek and bandages wrapped around his torso that rose and fell with each shallow intake of air. His cheeks look less flushed, a good sign.

There wasn't denying who had put those marks on his body, who Steve most likely _let_ put there. It was only a matter of finding the Winter Soldier's body at this point. The man was good, but he was no match for Steve. And if Steve came out of the fight hanging on a thread--but a thread nonetheless--he must have won. There is no way two people walk away from a fight like that. There was a grim finality to these things, like a shot to the center of the head, or an RPG hurling through the air at an unsuspecting man.

He stretches and decides to make some coffee, sidestepping the wedding-sized bouquets of flowers in the room. Two guards were keeping watch outside, which made him feel strange. A presence outside the room, just standing there, all hours of the night and day.

This is definitely not what he'd been expecting when he signed up for another war. But there's nothing to expect from war aside from death, so he stays thankful that Steve's still here.

He's not sure thats what he sees when he looks back over, though. Steve was a physical presence in the room, blood pumping through his veins. But what made someone alive? What gave them that distinguishing spark, the particularity of their movements and cadence in their speech? Steve hadnt been the same in that sliver of time between the anacostia freeway and the helicarrier. There was something there. A flicker in his eyes, rekindled hope of some measure. He didn't know what would be there when Steve woke up.

  
He falls back in his chair with a filled mug, curling in on it for some of the extrapolating warmth.

  
The bedside phone rings suddenly. It could be one of the avengers, Natasha maybe. It could be someone in the hospital. But Natasha has his cell number, and hospitals dont call their patients at two in the morning. Sam quickly reaches over Steve, pulling it to his ear and craning his neck so it sits between his shoulder. He adjusts the mug with his free hand.

"Hello?"

A strange noise on the other end, no answer.

"Hello?" Sam asks again, suspicion eating him away. "Who is this?" It didnt really matter who it was, he couldn't figure out why he had asked.

More muffled silence.

"Dont call this number again." Sam says before hanging up.

"Wait- wait" Its a desperate plea.

Sam waits.

"Is he ok?" Its a gravelly voice.

A thought snakes its way to the front of Sam's brain, until hes fully processing who could be on the other end of the line. He doesnt think to lid the anger spilling out in his words. "Are you kidding me? This a game to you?"

"Hardly." The voice responds. Its quiet, and almost guilt-ridden. He can almost picture the man on the other end standing rigid.

He pretended to not be bothered by the fact that Steve's admittance into the hospital was kept strictly under reps. Tried to convince himself it didn't make his skin crawl the fact Steve was in here wasnt even told to some of the hospital staff, let alone information that was privy to the public.

"He's barely alive, no thanks to you, and if you come at him again you won't be able to go through me so easily a second time."

If the phone call itself wasn't disturbing enough, just as Sam is about to read this guy more of a riot act, he hears a car alarm in the background of the call. The only problem is, that same instant he hears a car alarm go off outside the hospital window.

He hangs up without leaving time for a reply.

He surveyed the window, pulling the curtain shut. Shit shit shit. He was close, maybe even in the building. A trained KGB assassin, who knew where Steve was.

He starts to pace. _Is he ok?_ Steve kept insisting his old friend was in there. How much of that did Sam believe?

A million different horrifying scenarios played in his mind. Most of them ended with him and Steve dead. Well, him dead; Steve on a different level of dead than the one he'd been on for about three days now.

He knocked on the door.

It opened simultaneously, the armed guard acknowledging him.

"Sir?"

"Going out for a walk. Don't let anyone in. Back in twenty."

He left, glock tucked in the back of his jeans and covered by the fabric of his shirt. He took an elevator down to the lobby, noting the thumping in his chest. The whole ride down he leaned hard against his weapon, the reminder of it comforting and the pain grounding him. He just threatened an assassin outside the building he was in, and a poorly guarded building at that. The gun presses deeper into his back.

Steve had told him about Bucky. Not in detail, not anything remarkably specific. He hardly knew what the man looked like aside from the attack on the helicarrier- which had burned itself into his memory. Steve briefly reminisced about his old friend on their way to the dam outside of D.C. Sam only knew Bucky from the history books, and Steve didnt fill him on much. He seemed to swim in his own head. He was convinced Bucky had been forced to work for Hydra. Insisted his friend would never willingly take part in that. He'd never kill innocent people. He was a war hero, one of the howling commando's bravest and most elite who eventually payed the ultimate price.

They had known each other a long time.

But that didn't matter to Sam. It mattered a little bit. But there was no convincing him that a man who would injure Steve to the extent that he did was anything but a lost cause.

On the street he realized what he was preparing himself to do. It was a terrible idea, really. But Steve's life--and his-- took precedence over this man.

Only a few cars trekked the pavement streets, rumbling into the quiet air around the building. His hair stood on end, and he found himself reaching around to reassure himself of the gun, despite the fact it was digging into his lower back. As long as this guy was out there, Steve wasn't safe. And even if he had changed, Sam wasn't prepared to take chances while Steve was unconscious. The Winter Soldier knew Steve was here. But he was also a ghost, and ghosts aren't seen or found unless they reveal themselves.

It shouldnt be a surprise to him, then, that the sidewalks are empty.

"This was a really hair-brained idea, Sam." He muttered to himself. He didn't know what he'd been expecting and frankly, this was what his life had become. "Dumbass."

A pressing feeling emerged in his gut. An accumulation of fear and doubt and that desperation to protect Steve settled, balled up in a twisted pit inside of him. His heart was a dead weight in his chest, dully throbbing and pushing thick blood through veins taut with stress. The feeling, it seemed, only amplified itself with his present vulnerability. Alone against an assassin.

He stupidly thought about Reilly. Wishing for his witty remarks and unrelenting skepticism. ( _I swear wilson, you are one crazy SOB_ ) plagued with the memory of a dead man.

For him, thinking of Reilly didn't bring solace but a large amount of shame, endless questions. He always ran through the "what if" scenarios that followed him since the man's passing, thinking of different situations and ways he could've saved his friend that will never come to fruition. Focus, Sam. Concentrate. Don't think about Reilly.

The momentary distraction is his first and only mistake, and its enough.

He doesn't see the man approach from the garbage littered loading dock. But he definitely feels the harsh grip on his shoulder and tug behind him. He reels around, a fist twisting itself in the folds of his jacket. The next thing he knows he's being thrown up against the brick of a building, hearing the click of a safety on a gun. His gun.

\-----

  
What makes someone alive? What gives someone that basic, core desire to remain? To keep blood pumping through their veins? Maybe its for love, what they fear they'll leave behind. Family, responsibility, a legacy. Or Perhaps at its core, it is the very moment when one's life is threatened to cease that they find it is also the only thing they've wanted.

  
\-----

Shit.

He follows the familiar barrel to the gloved hand of a man in a jacket. A baseball cap sits snug under his hood. Sam suppresses his brief moment of confused panic(all that military training in action) and displays his hands non-threateningly. Its all he can do.

The visor of the man's hat tips at just the right angle, and in the lamplight from the street he can make out familiar features. The same features of the man who rushed at him and pushed him from the helicarrier platform.

"Ok, hey woah-" He stops himself. Please god, make this quick.

They say nothing for a while, Sam pressed forcibly against the side of the building, both of them encumbered by the deep shadows of the ally. He cant break free of the man's vise-like grip on his coat, and he isn't about to try. Some papery debris is tousled by the wind, and Sam closes his eyes to focus on the sounds because this cant be happening- he's going to die here, in this alleyway. And nobody will know.

Yet in this moment he feels everything. Remembers his mom and dad, sitting at a table for a holiday dinner in an ironed shirt, a button missing from Ian tugging at it earlier. Playing with army men on their soft family room carpet. The smells of his Mom's cooking and candles and the hum of the chipped-paint heater. Other ambiguous memories of his brothers and sisters that fade into each other, a lapse in time and he's in Afghanistan, trying to scrub blood from his uniform and sitting on his cot and staring at perforated fabric. Gunshots ringing, Reilly tossing him an MRE and them fighting over the two dessert brownies.

The bullet never comes.

He opens his eyes. There's something staring back, more specifically someone. He looks, different. The cold placating stare is gone, and in it's place resides fear and confusion.

His eyes hold the same thing Sam had been accustomed to seeing from hospital visits and VA experience- the look of someone who was lost.

"Barnes?" He tests.

"Dont,"

He looks, for lack of all things better that could possibly describe him, maniacal. He's shaking under layers of clothing, itching to keep an eye on his surroundings. Obviously uncomfortable with their current position. Paranoia.

"You gonna kill me?"

"No." He says, refocusing, as if the idea appalls him a little.

Thats good, Sam thinks. Its something, he'll take it.

He studies Barnes for a bit longer, unsure of what to say. Barnes returns the look, and for a moment it seems he might still be tossing the kill Sam idea back and forth.

Eventually the man breaks the silence, carefully saying,

"You're his friend."

Its worded not quite like a question, and Sam isn't sure if it's supposed to be.

"So were you, I take it."

The grip on Sam's jacket loosens.

"You did quite the number on him." a flinch, followed by more silence between them.

"I know."

Its not the answer Sam was expecting. Not that he'd been expecting anything more than a bullet in his head a few minutes ago. Its an admission, but one of guilt and defeat

Hes broken, Sam thinks. Its the first thing out of this ordeal he knows for sure. He could kick himself for not seeing the signs sooner. Steve couldn't kill him, never would. It was stupid of Sam to assume that. The man looked lost and out of his mind a little, which was not the most comforting while being held at gunpoint. He wonders if this is similar to what Steve saw, a few days ago. Barnes didnt look injured, even. If he was he had done a good job of hiding it.

He wished he had Steve's intuition in this moment. Steve would know what to say, how to handle this. He was good in all the ways Sam wasn't. Sure, he'd dealt with traumatized people before, but this guy--caked in filth and hollowed out--was damaged beyond repair. This wasn't the Winter Soldier.

Steve had been right.

"He's ok, you know." Sam says, because it's all he can give and for some reason, he wishes he could give more. The grip falters.

Bucky looks at him, looks away. Sam's eyes flick to the gun for a brief second and its brought back up in his face

"Hey, hey. Ok, I get it. I know you don't trust anyone. I wouldn't. Quite frankly, I don't trust you either. But that man in there," Sam indicates the hospital's direction with a backwards point of his thumb "I'm on his side, so you can take what you want out of that."

Barnes stares at him, its cold and driven, hes searching for something in Sam's face, a lie perhaps. He lowers the gun slightly.

"Give me the gun?"

"No."

The grip on his shirt is loose enough that Sam could run if he wanted to, maybe clock the guy with an uppercut and run for life. But as terrifying as he may be, he's also confused. Like Steve, a man out of time. He needs help.

Sam reaches a hand out, slowly and carefully. Barnes pulls away, but remains still when Sam rests his hand on top of the weapon. He can feel the man's hand shaking slightly.

He pushes it down slowly, until the barrel is aimed at the ground beneath their feet. The whole time Bucky gives him a look that is equal parts impressed as much as it is a "don't test me" stare. Surprisingly, he allows it. Sam couldn't believe he was doing it himself, either. He even goes further, letting it drop to the pavement and kicking it several feet away into the not-so-well-lit medical loading bay. If he couldn't have it then neither would Sam.

The gloved hand releases his coat.

"Hydra, right?" Sam says.

Bucky stares him down, slightly thrown off. "What?"

"What did they do to you?" He asks.

He'd obviously tripped a wire with that question. It shows on Barnes's pained face. He turns but doesn't leave, keeping Sam in his peripheral.

"None of your business." A pause, "Coming here was a mistake." He starts to walk, turning the corner out of the alleyway.

"Why _did_ you come?"

If he'd heard the question he didn't answer. Sam, who'd been standing dumbfounded in the alley, fumbled for his gun in the dark and ran after him.

By the time he made it out, the street was empty.

\-----

Steve woke up about two days later, he was out of the hospital in a week despite his near-fatal injuries that healed with every hour, it seemed. He stayed at Sam's place following the onslaught of paparazzi and press who caught word of his hospital stay and swarmed every time he was out in public. It wouldn't be smart to go back to New York.

  
On a sunny day, they meet with fury in Arlington.

"You don't have to come with me." Steve had said.

But after that moment in the alley, this wasn't just about Steve anymore.

"When do we start?"


End file.
